2273: One an Hour

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(11:23) Today I am going to write one sentence each hour.

(12:35) It’s going well so far; I’ve remembered to follow up the first sentence with this one.

(13:26) Could do with a poo; not currently in an ideal situation to do so.

(14:22) Still need a poo, but I will survive, dammit; I will survive!

(15:07) Semicolons sure are useful for exercises like this; they effectively allow me to cheat the system and write more than one sentence at once.

(16:15). Lacerated my thumb on a security box; now both of my thumbs have been mangled by retail work.

(17:31) I’m having a poo; at last, sweet relief, and after this I’m going to go and play some old Atari games before dinner thanks to the excellent compilation Atari Vault.

(18:58) Ooh, nearly forgot to write something this hour; got in there with two minutes to spare.

(19:53) Gave the Prison Break heist in Grand Theft Auto Online another go; we still can’t nail that last part, though this time our failure was more due to the game glitching than actual incompetence for once.

(23:05) GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

See, I could have been dishonest there and just made up sentences for the hours I forgot about, but my integrity means too much to pull the wool over your eyes in such a manner, dear reader.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted; certainly made working on a Sunday a smidgen more palatable. I have tomorrow off, which is nice; I do like a nice midweek day off, although I only have one before it’s back to work for three days. I shouldn’t complain, I guess; it’s money, and the place where I work so far appears to be inoffensive enough for the time being.

Tomorrow will be spent sleeping, completing some freelance work assignments and playing lots of video games, in that order. The remainder of this evening will be spent playing video games, too.

2255: Things I Feel Irrationally Weird About Saying Out Loud

Number 9,752 in my List of Things That I Don’t Quite Understand About Myself is the fact that there are some things I feel irrationally weird about saying out loud.

Normal things, to be clear; the sort of things that regular people probably happily say out loud without a second though. And yet I always feel peculiar whenever I’m put in a situation where I might have to say one of them, and will often do everything I can to avoid saying the thing in question.

Here is a non-exhaustive list.

My own name. I’ve felt awkward about saying my name — particularly my full, non-abbreviated name — ever since I was little. I find it hard to pin down exactly why this is or what set me off thinking this way in the first place, but I have a feeling it has something to do with how much I disliked my speaking voice when I was growing up; I used to absolutely hate hearing recordings of myself, both before and after my voice broke, because I really didn’t like my accent and the way I pronounced things. I actually have reasonably good diction for the most part; when I was little — and to an extent even now — I worried that I sounded “too posh”, and the name “Peter” is a name that it is very difficult to make sound cool when you sound even the slightest bit posh. As such, I have gravitated towards “Pete” ever since, but still avoid saying it out loud whenever possible.
Other people’s names. I know lots of people on first-name terms. I hate calling any of them by name. Unlike my hang-ups about my own name, this is nothing to do with not liking their names — it’s a peculiar reaction I have where I feel that someone’s name has significant power and meaning to a person, and that using it in a carefree manner to attract their attention or address something to them is somehow insulting. This is, of course, complete nonsense, since we rely on our names to identify ourselves to one another. I feel this one may be something to do with my own reaction to my own name: perhaps I’m subconsciously worrying that other people don’t like hearing or saying their own name too.
Tummy/belly. Stomach. Always stomach. My stomach hurts. I have a stomachache. Never, ever, ever I have a tummyache or a bellyache. Why? My reaction to these words is that they are somehow “childish” and not something an adult should be saying. Once again, this is nonsense, of course, but I still just can’t bring myself to say them.
Variations on “goodbye”. I hate saying goodbye. Not in the romantic “I hate goodbyes!” sense, but in the fact that I simply hate saying goodbye, bye-bye, see you later, see you round, ta-ta for now, bye. I honestly don’t know where this one has come from because saying “goodbye” is a fundamental part of human interaction: it’s a means of demonstrating that your time with someone else has now ended, and that you are going to go elsewhere and/or speak to someone else. Perhaps I think it’s “rude” somehow — that I always think the other person I’m speaking to should be the one to terminate the interaction? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it’s ruder to leave without saying goodbye, which I have been known to do on numerous occasions simply to avoid this hideous awkwardness.
Excuse me. “Excuse me” tends to go hand-in-hand with speaking to strangers, and I do not like speaking to strangers, particularly those I perceive to have more “power” than me in a particular situation. Which is, to be honest, most people most of the time. This one I kind of understand, but it’s still fairly irrational.
Toilet. I cringe every time I use the Americanism “bathroom” to mean “toilet”, but I still use it anyway, particularly when in an unfamiliar place or with unfamiliar people. “Do you have a bathroom I can use?” Of course you do, what sort of house would it be if you didn’t? Somehow I see framing the question in this manner as more polite than “Can I use your toilet?” — evidently my mind subconsciously converts “can I use your toilet?” to “can I get my penis out and spray urine into something in your house?” which results in feelings of shame.

I’m pretty sure there are more, but making this list is depressing me about my own lack of social skills. (Not really, but, well, that’s probably enough to be getting on with for now.) So let’s leave it there for now. I may well return to this topic if I think of some more!

1131: Lavatorial Subconscious

It is, as I have noted a number of times previously on these very pages, during the hours of the morning between waking up for the first time and actually waking up enough to be able to get out of bed that your subconscious works the hardest to show you the most fucked-up shit possible to get you wondering what the hell someone was injecting into you while you slept. These “morning dreams” are also the ones that tend to stick in your memory a lot more than the things your brain dreams up in the main part of your sleep cycle, too.

As you will recall if you’ve been following this blog for a while, I have recounted these peculiar and surreal experiences in the past. And I thought I’d do that today, largely to resist the temptation to write about Ar Tonelico yet again.

This morning’s weird dream was once again somewhat lavatorial in nature, at least in part, so for that I apologise.

I forget the specific circumstances which brought me to the situation, but something had caused me to arrive at a building which looked somewhat like Kazuma’s orphanage from the video game Yakuza 3. There were a few differences, though. For some reason, inside the wooden building there was a large room with windows all around its walls, except for one completely wooden wall, which had a toilet on it.

I had arrived at the building to see someone I knew — I think they were a teacher, but I don’t recall seeing their face clearly. Their class were with them, but ignored me until I stepped into the bizarre “toilet room” and started having a piss, at which point some kid pointed out the fact that I was clearly having a piss, and that everyone should watch closely. Naturally, once I had started, I couldn’t stop — you know how it is when you really need a piss and you release that valve — but I was also very conscious of everyone standing around outside this room, with me on display.

Somehow, I managed to find a way of standing where I knew that no-one would be able to see my knob or the seemingly never-ending stream of piss erupting from me, but the crowd began to become more rowdy. At first it was shouting and laughing, but then it changed to singing — a few scattered voices at first, which eventually became as one, singing a driving, dramatic song that inexplicably developed an orchestral backing after a while despite the fact there was clearly not an orchestra present — at least not one which I could see. As the music built in intensity, volume and tempo, I became aware that I was losing control of my, uh, “flow” and it was going everywhere, and that everyone could see this.

Suddenly the music stopped, and I was done. I flushed, and went to wash my hands at the sink that I’m sure wasn’t there beforehand. The sink was full of paint and the draining board next to it looked rusty and dirty, but clean water came out of the taps, at least. I washed up and left the room, trying to get far away from my “audience”, who thankfully didn’t follow me. I’m not sure how long I ran or to where, but eventually I found myself in a room with Emma Watson, who grabbed me and kissed me rather forcefully.

And then I woke up, disappointingly. Well thank you, subconscious, for keeping me asleep during the bizarre, slightly traumatic part and waking me up just as things were getting interesting.

1008: Three Wishes

My mind regularly wanders, particularly when I’m trying to get to sleep, and often delves into the territory of rather predictable fantasies. No, not that kind of fantasy — well, not all the time, anyway — but rather the sort of fantasies that tend to provoke conversations in the pub or at the end of a house party. Things like “what superpowers would you like to have?” or “what would you do if you had three wishes?”

I’ve always found the idea of three wishes a fascinating one, ever since I first heard various genie-toting tales from the Arabian Nights and the subsequent primary school “I wish I had three more wishes” jokes. I’ve never quite managed to come up with a definitive answer as to what my three would be. The closest I’ve come is determining that I’d probably have two “practical” ones, one of which is usually ensuring that my body is in perfect physical condition — because, well, if you have the opportunity, you might as well ensure you’re in full working order, right? (And also I’m fed up with having an itchy scalp. TMI? Fuck off.) The second practical one is often ensuring I’m in a situation where I don’t have to worry about money. (This fantasy came up considerably more frequently while I was out of work, as you might expect.)

It’s the third wish I often spend a long time pondering, though. I figure once I’ve done the vaguely responsible thing and wished for things that ensure my affairs are in order, I can cut loose with the third one. (Of course, I could also set the genie free with my third wish, but where’s the fun in that?)

Several recurring possibilities usually enter my mind for this third wish. They probably say something about me. Please do not read too much into them. (Or do. I don’t care. You can do what you want.)

My first possible third wish (you’re following, right?) is the ability to “do magic”. Perhaps as a side-effect of my love of role-playing games, every time I imagine requesting this wish I picture the genie bringing up what essentially amounts to a character creation interface and inviting me to pick my spells. The magic I end up choosing usually ends up being of the elemental variety. Thinking about it, I’m not entirely sure why I pick this, because if there’s one thing that probably isn’t that useful in everyday modern society, it’s elemental magic. Whatever role-playing games might tell us, there are not monsters wandering around outside every town, problems cannot always be solved by setting fire to people who disagree with you and broken machinery cannot be repaired simply by calling down a thunderbolt on it. (In fact, some might say that usually has the opposite effect to repairing it.)

My second possible third wish is that my car would become a VTOL flying vehicle powered by anti-gravity technology which is physically impossible — so far as we know, anyway. Or it might be magic, given that said car doesn’t usually require any fuel. This is a fairly self-explanatory wish usually provoked by the fact I’ve been stuck in a traffic jam at some point during the day and inevitably found myself picturing what it might be like if my car could just rise up off the ground and fly over all the frustrated motorists beneath me. It would be awesome. Don’t say it wouldn’t be, because you would be wrong.

My third possible third wish is the ability to switch bodies with someone — usually a person of the opposite sex who has absolutely nothing to do with my normal life and who possibly exists outside of normal space and time. This is pure curiosity, and come on, who hasn’t wondered about how “the other side” lives? Different times I’ve had this particular fantasy have varied slightly — sometimes the other person simply ceases to exist when my consciousness isn’t present in her; other times she goes about her normal life and simply switches places with me willingly; sometimes she’s an empty vessel (like a robot body) built to hold my consciousness; other times, she is me in a parallel dimension and I am actually both people, I’m simply only aware of one at a time; other times still, the change comes without warning at unexpected moments. (The latter situation, I’ve recently discovered, is the plot hook of the anime Kokoro Connect, so naturally I’ve immediately started watching it.) My motivation for this wish is simply to see what it would be like living another life that is completely different to my own — opposite in almost every respect.

A variation on that third possible wish is to gain the ability to shapeshift. When I picture this wish, my imagination usually puts some surprisingly conservative limitations on my power. I can usually only shapeshift for a limited amount of time, meaning that I can’t just stick in another form — I’ll just change back to my real self after a set period of time has elapsed. I’m usually only limited to changing into other human forms, as well — no turning into, say, a xylophone or a fridge for me. It’s enough to have a similar experience to the “body-swapping” wish, though — I get to try out what it’s like to be someone completely different for a little while.

Obviously, I know all of these will never come true so it’s a completely moot point. But I wonder, if the opportunity did arise, which one I’d actually choose when the time came?

#oneaday Day 788: From the Depths of the Subconscious

Analysing your dreams can probably tell you a lot about yourself. If that’s the case, though, I’m not sure I want to know what my most recent vivid imaginings say.

I dream best in the morning after I’ve woken up once. At least, those are the dreams I remember. If I wake up when Andie leaves for work and promptly fall back asleep again (which, to be perfectly honest, I usually do) then I’ll often have incredibly vivid dreams which, more to the point, I tend to remember pretty clearly. They’re certainly not conscious imaginings, because there’s no way I’d choose to think of a lot of the things that flit through my mind. Rather, it appears to be a completely automatic process, presumably based on anxieties or thoughts already stuck in my head.

This morning, these bizarre “snooze dreams” were — and I apologise for what I’m about to recount — rather lavatorial in nature. To begin with, I found myself sitting on a toilet in an upstairs hallway of a house. It wasn’t my real-life house, though I think it might have been my own house in the dream. Quite why there was a toilet in the upstairs hallway was anyone’s guess. And quite why I was sitting on it when the house was clearly playing host to a large party is an even bigger mystery.

Despite the fact I had clearly just had a dump in front of all the passing partygoers — most of whom seemed oblivious to my presence and activities — for some reason (and again, I apologise) I found myself unable to… uhh… “clean up”, as it were. I found myself panicking and wishing all these people weren’t in my house, screaming at them to get out of the way, but still no-one paid me any heed.

I ran downstairs and found myself in the house I lived in for my fourth year of university. I knew there was a nice, quiet toilet in the back where I could complete my business, so I opened the door. I found a toilet all right, but it wasn’t the one I was expecting. Rather, it was in a large, L-shaped room whose walls and floor were all made of ceramic tiles. There was no ceiling to the room, and outside I could see that we appeared to be floating in space. Worse, there was no bog roll here, either, only three circular red buttons next to the toilet.

I left, and the subsequent journey was a blur, but I ended up in what appeared to be an aeroplane bathroom, albeit one with a sloping roof that met the wall behind the toilet, and a large skylight in it. When standing in front of the toilet, I could look out through the skylight, and I saw that we were in some sort of rural area. Outside the skylight, men in peculiar costumes were being shepherded away by strange figures I can’t remember any details about. For some reason, I thought nothing of this strange and slightly sinister behaviour, because I had more pressing matters on my mind.

There was a toilet paper dispenser on the wall, so I pulled the handle to dispense some, but the string of sheets went down a small hole underneath the dispenser. When I retrieved the paper from the hole, it was completely covered in a weird black sludge which was then all over my hand. After going “urgh” for a little while, I simply washed it off, finally wiped my arse (noting with some surprise that my underpants had not been soiled despite all the running around) and then woke up slightly worried that I might have shat myself in my sleep. (I hadn’t.)

This particular incident follows a long stream of other bizarre “snooze dreams” I’ve had which include being unable to go through with a sexual encounter because I didn’t have the sheet music for it; starting to read the TV Tropes page for my own life and being literally unable to look away from it; and a particularly unpleasant one where I lived in a big house with all my friends and we all suddenly started hating each other for no apparent reason.

My subconscious is fucked, basically. Oh well, at least it keeps things interesting. And the fact I can remember all this nonsense gives me good fodder for when I actually do want to do something creative and imaginative… though I can’t see a novel about someone who might have shat himself catching on, really.

#oneaday Day 763: A Question That No-One Seems To Have Asked Regarding RPGs

Here’s a stumper for all you RPG fans: exactly how much does taking one hit point of damage hurt?

It’s not a particularly straightforward thing to work out, given that hit points are a representative abstraction of physical condition rather than a measurable, uh, measurement. But let’s assume for a moment that it is indeed possible to measure one’s own hit points. How much, then, would taking one hit point of damage hurt?

The answer to that question would largely depend on what model of hit points you are using. If you’re talking Dungeons and Dragons hit points, taking one damage would fucking hurt if you’re not in tip-top physical condition. The average “man in the street” sort of person (i.e. not a warrior, rogue, wizard, cleric or what have you) is regarded as a “level 0 human” and generally has something in the region of 2 or 3 hit points, if that. Level 1 wizards often only have in the region of 4 or so. As such, taking one hit point of damage as an average person following the Dungeons and Dragons model would hurt a great deal, putting you potentially up to halfway towards death (or rather, being knocked out, since people don’t officially die until bleeding out to -10 hit points in D&D).

Compare and contrast with the JRPG approach to hit points, however, where totals frequently extend into the thousands and, in some cases, the tens of thousands. As a beginning character in a JRPG, you’ll often have a low three-figure hit point total to start with, which will progress towards that elusive 9999 (or 99999) as you level up. Assuming that your average person hasn’t really levelled up a great deal thanks to a notable lack of monsters (big spiders battled with Hoovers notwithstanding) we can work on the assumption that a single hit point’s worth of damage doesn’t really hurt a great deal. ‘Tis but a scratch and all that.

So, since it’s late and my brain is starting to shut down a little bit, let’s take this to the next logical extension and consider a variety of horrific injuries to determine exactly how many HP damage they’d do following the two approaches outlined above. We’re assuming that the person being injured here is not a Destiny-chosen hero who has been infused by the power of the Goddess/branded by the fal’Cie/chosen by Fate/revealed to be the wielder of the legendary blade Monado but rather, say, that man who works behind the fish counter in Sainsbury’s. As such, we’ll say he has 4HP in D&D and 150HP in a JRPG.

Getting an electric shock off an escalator handrail — D&D: 0HP, interrupt current action in surprise; JRPG: 1HP electric damage.
Falling out of bed while asleep — D&D: 0HP, lose “Sleep” condition; JRPG: 1HP physical damage, lose “Sleep” condition, afflict with “Embarrassment” (special moves charge slower)
Walking into a coffee table — D&D: 0 HP, maybe stun for a turn, staggering randomly around the room going “OUCH”; JRPG: 1HP physical damage.
Paper cut — D&D: 0 HP, afflict with “very mild bleeding” status, lose 1HP every 500 turns unless the cut heals (use a bandage or roll a D20 every turn, on a number between 3 and 20, it heals naturally); JRPG: 2HP physical damage.
Accidentally grating your fingers while attempting to grate cheese — D&D: 0HP, afflict with “very mild bleeding status” as with “paper cut” above; JRPG: 1HP physical damage.
Stubbing your toe — D&D: 0HP, incapacitate for a turn, remove ability to use vocal components of spells and stealth due to yelling “FAAAAAAAHHHHK!”; JRPG: 3HP physical damage.
Having a cat that is standing on you decide that it needs to hold on tightly with its claws — D&D: 0HP, 50% possibility of affliction with “very mild bleeding” status as with “paper cut” above, movement forbidden (you’ve got a cat on you); JRPG: 3HP physical damage, afflict with Rooted (you’ve got a cat on you).
Inadvertently ripping off a toenail by catching it on something — D&D: 0HP, afflict with “bleeding” status, lose 1HP every 50 turns unless the cut heals (use a bandage or roll a D20 every turn, on a number between 8 and 20, it heals naturally); JRPG: 10HP physical damage, afflict with Slow.
Burning your hand on the handle of a poorly-insulated saucepan — D&D: 0HP, interrupt current action, forced shouting of obscenity breaks any Stealth-related effects; JRPG: 10HP Fire damage.
Standing on an upturned three-prong plug — D&D: 0HP, movement forbidden for 5 turns, remove ability to use vocal components of spells and stealth due to yelling “FUCK. Cunt! ARSE! SHIT that fucking hurts. AAAAARGH.”; JRPG: 15HP physical damage, afflict with Rooted.
Banging your head on a low ceiling even after seeing a “mind your head” sign — D&D: 0HP, dazed for one turn. temporary reduction to Wisdom and Intelligence; JRPG:10HP physical damage, 10MP magic damage for a blow to the head.
Getting punched in the face by some drunk dude at a bar who thought you were eyeing up his missus but in fact you were trying to read the scrawled sign on the front of that fridge that said that the cheap drinks might actually be a bit out of date — D&D: 1HP; JRPG: 25HP physical damage.
Suffering any sort of trauma to the testicular area — D&D: 2HP (probably won’t kill you unless you’ve just been punched twice by a drunk dude at a bar who thought you were eyeing up his missus, but it bloody hurts), stunned for 5 turns, temporary reduction to Constitution; JRPG: 50HP physical damage, afflicted with “Stop” status as you wheeze and cough in an attempt to recover your dignity.
Getting stabbed in the leg, whether accidentally or deliberately — D&D: 2HP, movement rate halved; JRPG: 50HP physical damage, afflicted with “Slow”.
Failing to escape the unwanted affections of an amorous gorilla — D&D: Your adventure is over. You have been adopted by an amorous gorilla as its mate. Any attempt to escape will result in death. JRPG: Perform a badly-executed stealth/platforming sequence to escape.
Getting stabbed in the face — D&D: 5HP (you will likely bleed to an unhappy -10HP death), permanent reduction to Charisma; JRPG: 100-150HP physical damage.
Suffering an apparently successful attempt to behead you — D&D: 14HP; JRPG: 150HP
Getting the smackdown from an angry God/being hit with a planet by the final boss — D&D: 50HP; JRPG: 5000HP
Standing quite close to the epicentre of a nuclear explosion, you know, enough to get a good view and think “ooh, that’s a bit hot, I wish I’d stood back a bit more” — D&D: 998HP; JRPG: 9998HP.
Standing in the epicentre of a nuclear explosion — D&D: 999HP; JRPG: 9999HP.

Should you find yourself suffering any of these injuries, though, fear not; for a good night’s sleep cures all ills, as everyone knows. Unless you’re already dead, in which case you’d better get on good terms with your local Cleric or purchase some Phoenix Down.

#oneaday Day 153: Things That Make No Logical Sense But Are Clearly True: Food Edition

Life brings with it a number of learning experiences, and you store these pieces of information away in your dome-like for future reference, ready for subconscious recall at any available opportunity. Some of these pieces of information are, of course, complete nonsense and have absolutely no basis in scientific fact, but you become convinced of them anyway.

And so it is that you, like me, may have come to believe such rubbish as the following facts, which are clearly true. And all food-related, oddly.

Coke tastes better in a can.

It just does. Cans get colder than bottles and stay colder longer than bottles. Plus something about the metal particles makes the Coke taste better than the plastic particles of a bottle. There are people who will say that a glass bottle is the best way to enjoy a Coke, but they are wrong.

Sandwiches taste better when cut into triangles, unless they are bacon sandwiches.

This is also true. Eat a sandwich that has not been cut in any way and it tastes clearly inferior to triangular sandwiches. And don’t even get me started on people who cut rectangular sandwiches. There’s nothing even a little bit right about that.

Bacon sandwiches taste better when cut into small squares.

The exception to the sandwich rule is the bacon sandwich rule. Try it. Next time you have a bacon butty, cut it into quarters and you’ll see that it’s clearly better.

McDonalds chips taste better when consumed by the handful.

Milk tastes better swigged from the bottle.

As everyone (who enjoys milk) well knows, having an illicit glug from the bottle is far nicer than pouring out a glass. I fear that some of the Coke Science may be coming into play here.

It’s impossible to make a good cup of coffee for yourself.

Make yourself a coffee. Taste it. Put up with it because it’s “all right”. Now get someone else to make you a coffee. Taste it. Enjoy it. Accept their making you a coffee that one time as acceptance of a non-verbal contract to make you a coffee whenever you want.

Tea only tastes of something if you believe in it.

I don’t believe in tea, therefore it tastes like hot water — particularly the herbal teas. They smell great, but I never believe that they’re going to taste of anything, so they don’t.

Ketchup and HP sauce are opposites, and if they touch each other they will spontaneously combust.

What other reason could people possibly have for putting dollops of each respective sauce on opposite sides of the plate?

You are not allowed to have soup on a hot day.

It’s not that you don’t want soup on a hot day, your brain tells you that you must not have soup on a hot day.

If a piece of food you don’t like touches a piece of food you do like, the food you do like is forever tainted.

This one is actually true. I hate onion — particularly raw onion. Even the slightest hint of a taste of it makes me retch. This includes if a salad once had raw onion on it and said raw onion has since been removed. It leaves a flavour residue that makes anything the onion once touched completely unpalatable.

Cheese sauce can be used as the strongest adhesive known to man.

If you’ve ever burnt cheese sauce onto a saucepan, you’ll know that this is also true.

The most exotic-sounding sandwich on the menu is always the best.

This one is, unfortunately, not always true. Many’s the time I’ve had a chicken tikka sandwich hoping for a gorgeous curried revelation and walked away disappointed, wishing I’d gone for the tuna and sweetcorn.

The dessert that mentions chocolate the most times is the best.

Also not always true, since too much chocolate can lead to becoming completely gummed up with sticky, gooey goodness. And while that can be fun, it can also lead to feeling a bit sick. And no-one likes feeling a bit sick.

If you don’t have some sort of sauce on a kebab, you are Doing it Wrong.

Because why on Earth would you eat that shit if it wasn’t covered in chilli sauce that can strip paint, or garlic sauce so strong it can be used as insect repellent?

#oneaday Day 120: Communal Blogging II

Hello! I am in the pub with good friends celebrating my birthday. As a result, it seems like a good time to take the Communal Blogging approach, where everyone present gets to write a short paragraph. This also absolves me of responsibility for any drunken grammatical errors because they probably weren’t my fault. So there. Without further ado, here comes the first paragraph from someone who isn’t me.

Aren’t kittens awesome. I mean like cats in general to be honest, all fwuffeh and cute and slinky and tired and stretchy and shit. Like I said. Awesome.

Luke is being all kinds of mean on twitter. I think that Amy may destroy him at some point. Sometimes, I worry about Luke. And then sometimes I just don’t care.

So Luke just tried to steal Pete’s iPhone how rude!?? Honestly I had to resort to telling him off like one of my students, I’m not so sure that I can achieve the standard Q31 in a pub on a Saturday night!!

“What’s a lovely curry” said pete and Graham sneezed on Laura, in which she replied “you need to be wiped down” pete then jokingly laughed and called graham a “dirty boy” ..which he liked a little too much.

Thanks pete for a great night. Was also really nice to meet andi who I forgot I met before. Is good to see you happy. Ultimately it’s been fun to be around people who make me laugh and who are interesting. Happy 30th.

Absolutely splendid night with my mate pete-not entirely sure what should be written here, but I’ve had a few pints and honestly life is quite good! Great to see friends grow up, although not too much thankfully-and its nice to have a chat with new people-with a lowest common denominator (that’s you pete). Right, should stop- fact from tonight-9 out of 10 people have an iPhone…..if you believe tonight’s statistics…

Pete! What more needs to be said? You’re amazing. Good job!!

Well, here we are again. It’s a Saturday night on the whiskey. Curry has been done (full!) and gin has been given. Why are we here? For wholly celebratory purposes, of course. Unless you mean life, in which case I haven’t the foggiest, save to say it doesn’t involve a god of any sort that I know of. Music is probably the answer. That or inevitable death. Cheery, eh? Yep, that’ll be the whiskey talking…

Well done everyone. Thank you for your contributions. Good night!

#oneaday Day 102: A Hundred and Two

I Googled the number 102. The results might surprise you. If you’re really bored and easily surprised.

The first page of results appears to be largely radio stations. Top hit for Googling 102 is Capital FM in Manchester, claiming to be Manchester’s Number 1 Hit Music Station and conveniently ignoring the fact that Manchester is not the capital of the UK.

The second result is the Wikipedia entry for the number 102. I wasn’t even aware Wikipedia had entries for individual numbers, but here it is—proof. Apparently 102 is special because it’s an abundant number, a semiperfect number (its mother must be so proud) and a sphenic number. It is also the sum of four consecutive prime numbers, the sum of Euler’s totient function, the third base 10 polydivisible number and a Harshad number. I do not know what any of those things mean and I’m sure that 98% of you don’t either.

Wikipedia also tells us that the number 102 is the emergency telephone number for police in Ukraine and Belarus, the emergency number for fire in Israel and the emergency telephone number for ambulance in parts of India. And, of course, everyone knows that the Empire State Building has 102 floors, right?

Having clicked on a few links on that Wikipedia page, I’m genuinely astonished that there does indeed seem to be an individual entry for every single number. At least, every single number in the immediate vicinity of 102. Isn’t the collected knowledge of the human race fascinating?

Well, actually, if you are the sort of person who despises maths, such as my 15-year old self (who regularly genuinely got angry at maths homework, despite the fact it was essentially inanimate and couldn’t fight back) you probably don’t find the fact that you can look up numbers on Wikipedia that interesting.

So for those people, back to Google it is.

Other radio stations that feature 102 include the stunningly boring-sounding “Town 102” from Ipswich, Wave 102 from Dundee (presumably not quite as good as Southampton’s Wave 103), Warwickshire’s saucy-sounding 102 Touch FM and Salisbury’s Spire FM 102.

Google also brings up the IMDb listing for 102 Dalmatians, which has 2 stars or a rating of 4.4 out of 10 from 7,812 users. Because it’s a movie and not a video game, we can assume that this means it is, in fact, slightly below average and not OMG CRAP. The title of that movie always struck me as incredibly dumb, however, because it should surely be “101 Dalmatians 2” if you are Disney and you are making an ill-advised sequel to your ill-advised live-action remake of your beloved animated movie. I guess they thought they were being clever. Perhaps they were.

Anyhow. I hope I’ve educated and informed you about the number 102. I promise I won’t stoop to finding out fascinating fact about a number ever again. Unless I get really stuck for ideas.

Day 450

#oneaday Day 82: Mind. Blown.

It’s a really good thing that humans have the capacity to take things for granted. It’s not always the best thing to do, but occasionally, it’s quite fun to just step back (not literally, otherwise you’ll bump into that guy behind you and he’ll drop his fine china tea-set, making a horrible stain on the carpet and making him wonder whether or not he should ask you to pay for it because he’s actually quite anxious about talking to other people and doesn’t want to become acquainted with someone by yelling at them, but at the same time that tea-set was very expensive and belonged to his grandmother so he feels like he should at least say something so basically, don’t bump into him) and think about how awesome “things” are.

Take cars, for example, and by extension most means of motorised transportation. Most of us use some form of transport every single day and don’t give it a second thought. But think about it. You get into a car through a door, like a room. It has carpets and windows and furniture, like a room. But it moves. When you sit in a car, you’re in a room that moves. When you’re driving on the motorway, you’re sitting in a chair that’s going 90 70 miles per hour. That’s pretty amazing, right?

And the Internet. Particularly wireless Internet. Walk into pretty much any coffee shop and the Internet is in the air around you. You can’t see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, but turn on your iPhone (other smartphones and Wi-Fi compatible devices are available) and it’s there, allowing you to watch videos of cats at your convenience while you enjoy a half-caff skinny tall frappucino with extra coolwhip spoogebang sprinklywotsits and a slab of cake. Cat videos from thin air! Amazing.

Or the fact you’re reading this blog (which is amazing in itself) — I’m sitting here typing this in my makeshift study in Cambridgeshire while you could be sitting absolutely anywhere, even high in the sky on some airline services, reading this. Perhaps you’re in the future right now, scanning back through my past entries to get a better picture of who I am and whether I’m the sort of person who likes bludgeoning kittens to death (hint: I’m not… although that’s just the sort of thing someone who had a secret life bludgeoning kittens to death might say) — and you’re reading this. You’re in my brain, sucking up my soul. Stop it. But it’s still pretty amazing.

Of course, if you take all this to its natural conclusion, the fact that we’re here at all doing the things we do is pretty amazing, too. We are walking, talking lumps of chemical reactions that are reacting in such a way as to make us aware of our own existence and able to control our own destinies… or at least, so it seems, anyway. Chemical reactions who can write blog posts, talk to people who are 160 miles away, drink coffee and listen to music at the same time. Amazing.

I’ll stop now before my head explodes at the fact we’re on a big lump of rock hurtling through space that just happens to move in a nice elliptical orbit around a MASSIVE BURNING GLOB OF GAS and start taking everything for granted again.